LX. To FANNY KEATS. My dear Fanny, Miss Tucker's, Walthamstow. Hampstead, Tuesday [Postmark, 25 August 1818]. I have just written to Mr. Abbey to ask him to let you come and see poor Tom who has lately been much worse. He is better at present-sends his Love to you and wishes much to see you-I hope he will shortly—I have not been able to come to Walthamstow on his account as well as a little Indisposition of my own. I have asked Mr. A. to write me-if he does not mention any thing of it to you, I will tell you what reasons he has though I do not think he will make any objection. Write me what you want1 with a Flageolet and I will get one ready for you by the time you come. Your affectionate Brother Although the post-mark of the original letter is not distinct, there can be no real doubt about the date of this letter. The year and month are clearly stamped; the letter was certainly not written the same day as the previous one; the previous one was written on the 18th of August, which was a Tuesday; on Tuesday the 11th and Tuesday the 4th Keats was in Scotland; and Tuesday the 25th is the only one remaining. On that day, therefore, the brothers were certainly at Hampstead together. In the original the word what is inadvertently repeated in place of want. LXI. To JANE REYNOLDS, Afterwards Mrs. Thomas Hood. My dear Jane, Little Britain. Well Walk, Sept. 1st [1818]. Certainly your kind note would rather refresh than trouble me, and so much the more would your coming if as you say, it could be done without agitating my Brother too much. Receive on your Hearth our deepest thanks for your Solicitude concerning us. I am glad John is not hurt, but gone safe1 into Devonshire-I shall be in great expectation of his Letter -but the promise of it in so anxious and friendly a way I prize more than a hundred. I shall be in town today on some business with my guardian 'as was with scar[c]e a hope of being able to call on you. For these two last days Tom has been more cheerful: you shall hear again soon how he will be. Remember us particularly to your Mother. Your sincere friend 92 John Keats 1 The word in the original might possibly be sane; but it is more probably save, written in mistake for safe. 2 Mr. Abbey, who is mentioned in the two previous letters. LXII. To BENJAMIN BAILEY. Teignmouth, My dear Bailey, When a poor devil is drowning, it is said he comes thrice to the surface ere he makes his final sink; if, however, even at the third rise, he can manage to catch hold of a piece of weed or rock, he stands a fair chance, as I hope I do now, of being saved. I have sunk twice in our correspondence, have risen twice, and have been too idle, or something worse, to extricate myself. I have sunk the third time, and just now risen again at this two of the clock P.M., and saved myself from utter perdition by beginning this, all drenched as I am, and fresh from the water. And I would rather endure the present inconvenience of a wet jacket than you should keep a laced one in store for me. Why did I not stop at Oxford in my way? How can you ask such a question? Why did I not promise to do so? Did I not, in a letter to you, make a promise to do so? Then how can you be so unreasonable as to ask me why I did not? If this letter really belongs to September 1818, the date under which Lord Houghton gives it, it must be placed somewhere between the 1st and the 21st; and supposing Tom to have gone to Devonshire by himself, the passage referring to a letter from him gives rise to no difficulty. It is even possible that John had taken him down to Teignmouth after the 1st and left him for a few days. I presume the reference to a promise to stop at Oxford on his way may be to the passage at page 160 of this volume, "If I do not [go any journey], you shall see me soon, if not on my return, or I'll quarter myself on you next winter." This is the thing-(for I have been rubbing up my invention; trying several sleights: I first polished a cold, felt it in my fingers, tried it on the table, but could not pocket it: I tried chilblains, rheumatism, gout, tight boots, -nothing of that sort would do, so this is, as I was going to say, the thing)-I had a letter from Tom, saying how much better he had got, and thinking he had better stop. I went down to prevent his coming up. Will not this do? Turn it which way you like—it is selvaged all round. I have used it, these three last days, to keep out the abominable Devonshire weather. By the by, you may say what you will of Devonshire: the truth is, it is a splashy, rainy, misty, snowy, foggy, haily, floody, muddy, slipshod county. The hills are very beautiful, when you get a sight of 'em; the primroses' are out, but then you are in; the cliffs are of a fine deep colour, but then the clouds are continually vieing with them. The women like your London people in a sort of negative way-because the native men are the poorest creatures in England-because government never have thought it worth while to send a recruiting party among them. When I think of Wordsworth's Sonnet, "Vanguard of Liberty! ye men of Kent!" the degenerated race about me are pulvis Ipecac. simplex—a strong dose. Were I a corsair, I'd make a descent on the south coast of Devon; if I did not run the chance of having cowardice imputed to me. As for the men, they'd run away into the Methodist meeting-houses; and the women would be glad of it. Had England been If it were quite clear that this was meant literally of the moment, it would bear strongly against the correctness of the date; but in the absence of the original letter it would be over rash to accept as testimony what may very well have been meant in a general sense. a large Devonshire, we should not have won the Battle of Waterloo. There are knotted oaks, there are lusty rivulets, there are meadows such as are not elsewhere,—but there are no thews and sinews. "Moore's Almanack" is here a curiosity: arms, neck, and shoulders may at least be seen there, and the ladies read it as some outof-the-way romance. Such a quelling power have these thoughts over me that I fancy the very air of a deteriorating quality. I fancy the flowers, all precocious, have an Acrasian spell about them; I feel able to beat off the Devonshire waves like soap-froth. I think it well, for the honour of Britain, that Julius Cæsar did not first land in this county. A Devonshirer, standing on his native hills, is not a distinct object; he does not show against the light; a wolf or two would dispossess him. I like, I love England-I like its living men-give me a long brown plain for my money, so I may meet with some of Edmund Ironside's descendants; give me a barren mould, so I may meet with some shadowing of Alfred in the shape of a gipsey, a huntsman, or a shepherd. Scenery is fine, but human nature is finer; the sward is richer for the tread of a real nervous English foot; the eagle's nest is finer, for the mountaineer having looked into it. Are these facts or prejudices? Whatever they be, for them I shall never be able to relish entirely any Devonshire scenery. Homer is fine, Achilles is fine, Diomed is fine, Shakspeare is fine-Hamlet is fine, Lear is fine-but dwindled Englishmen are not fine. Where, too, the women are so passable, and have such English names, such as Ophelia, Cordelia, &c., that they should have such paramours, or rather imparamours! As for them, I cannot, in thought, help wishing, as did the cruel emperor, that they had but one head, and I might cut it off, to deliver them from any horrible courtesy they may |